Undergraduates may earn a Bridging Disciplines Programs (BDP) certificate in one of 17 different concentration areas. BDP certificates allow students from a variety of majors to explore their interests and learning goals. The list below includes BDP certificate topics relevant to students with interests in law and policy. Explore the list below to see how the 17 BDP certificates overlap with your interests.
Children & Society – Children and Public Policy Strand Concentration
- Explores the development of children and the social forces that impact them, focusing on topics such as adolescence; children and health; children, media, and the arts; children and public policy; and more. The Children & Public Policy Strand Concentration examines societal constructs, legislation, and institutions that affect, and to a greater extent, protect children.
Conflict Prevention, Management & Resolution
- Allows students to learn tools and frameworks for preventing, mitigating, and resolving conflicts – from complex global and societal conflicts around the world to the everyday conflicts in organizations and interpersonal relationships.
Criminal Law, Justice & Inequality
- This new program will accept applications starting in spring 2024. Allows students to examine the institutions that shape the origins, functions, and effects of the criminal legal system—from policing, to courts, to prisons—in social life.
- Examines a variety of disciplinary approaches to environmental processes and contemporary environmental issues, including sustainability, conservation, food and natural resource management, media, and policy.
Ethics & Leadership in Law, Politics & Government
- Explores law, politics, and government through the lens of leadership and ethics. Topics may include government leadership, civic participation, public policy, and social change.
- Introduction to the study and practice of domestic and international human rights issues. Students choose courses related to social groups and social justice; nationalism, imperialism, and war; and theory, policy, and institutions.
- Examines the development and implementation of public policy, focusing on how change happens. Topics include communication policy; economic policy; education policy; science and technology policy; and race, immigration, and citizenship.
- Explores how new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things are changing how cities deliver services, as well as the ethical, social, and policy implications of these innovations.
Social Inequality, Health & Policy
- Examines the causes and consequences of the huge disparities in health, life expectancy, and medical care delivery in the world today, exploring topics such as social/economic disparities, public health, and policy. Concentration areas include public health; family, fertility, and the life course; and migration and diaspora.